Turnaround
by Decapoda
Summary: People usually tell their lethargic peers to take initiative and make something of themselves. But when I take initiative, I wind up with police on my tail, gangrene eating up my hand, and the responsibility of fostering a slave escapee. AUpXh(?)R&R. The life of a young freethinker, fighting against an entire society of pokémon slavers.
1. Prologue: What to Expect

**Disclaimer: ****This collaborative story is written by Caltrop and me. **Pokémon and its affiliated characters belong to Game Freak (we own all characters mentioned, but not what they're based off of). We don't own any mentioned brands or companies, nor do we own any songs that may appear in the story. Visit my profile for an unimpressively broader disclaimer.  
All reviews are greatly appreciated.

**TURNAROUND**

* * *

«Prologue: What to Expect»

I was so close to succeeding, so close to getting on that ship and leaving this island in the chaotic disarray it so deserves, but alas, I have been caught in the midst of the very turmoil I have caused. I can see the ship. The rubber tires, hanging off the sides of the ship like bumpers, beckon me to jump from the dock and cling to them like I was originally supposed to do. I can't, though, for I've been restricted from moving by the island's police. To be honest, I didn't even know this little island had any form of police, let alone the miserly corporation owners who consider themselves as the "top" of the hierarchy and who feel fit enough to police the island.

The men, wearing their unfamiliar blue uniforms, force my head onto the hood of their car. They finally wrap shackles around my wrists, signifying the permanent end to my reign of terror.

So this really _is_ the end. This feeling I have—a feeling of pride and satisfaction that I gained when I attempted to make things right, accompanied by a counterbalancing pang of sorrow that I gained when I couldn't succeed—hangs around me and greatly confuses me. Maybe it's the varying feelings that's putting me through such a state of discombobulation, or maybe it's just my head bleeding out onto the car's hood. As my vision blurs, I decide the latter is the most probable. It's too hot, and I haven't eaten anything substantial in days.

Natives are beginning to crowd around the policemen and me. They're angry. They want me to pay for destroying their homes and devastating their fertile lands and whatnot. But, _I _didn't physically wreck the island like this. After all, I'm just one being, and I'm not even strong enough to uproot a palm tree. _No human _can uproot a palm tree – nor can he or she fire railgun-like beams from their hands for that matter. Although, I can admit to taking a major part in the destruction of the island, since I have had a huge influence on the inhuman island dwellers, the ones that fire beams from their hands (or their inhuman equivalents). So I guess it's fair enough that I'm being punished. Whatever, I tried.

The crowd yells at the police, telling them to hang me or throw me into them and have them tear me to shreds.

A policeman responds by saying, "This is the 21st century, people. We have more humane and less barbaric tactics of execution, rather than just _lynching _the kid."

…What did he just say? Execution?

"Humane!" the crowd roars in protest. "He deserves being beheaded!"

"What he _deserves _is to be disemboweled with a rusty spoon!"

"Gouge his eyes and make him suffer!"

The policemen look on nervously, wide-eyed. One of them proceeds to gesture for the crowd to calm down, saying, "People, where is your sense of compassion? Lord have mercy... I assure you he will be dealt with one way or another, and you'll all be pleased to know that, yes, he _will _be executed."

A moment goes by where all blood in my body ceases circulation. Anxiety rushes over me in the form of an uncomfortably cold wave. The hair on the back of my neck stands on end. So... It's been confirmed.

The man looks down at me with contempt. His intimidating glare puts me through cardiac arrest once more. He seizes my collar and pulls me up. "What's your name, boy?"

I still can't think straight. My lips quiver slightly, but no sound comes out. What's... What's my name?

After a while, the man shakes his head. "Don't answer me, then. I'll look you up in the records later." The policeman smirks, and it becomes clear that an idea has come to him. "You know what? Maybe we _will _lynch you. I'm sure we can make a sloppy scaffold in no time. Heck, we could just tie a noose to a tree, how does that sound? And we can make it a public event, too, just like in the olden days. Now get in the car, boy."

A fellow police assistant opens the car's door. I'm roughly forced in. I let out a gasp as my handcuffs dig into the skin of my wrists. The door slams shut, trapping me inside the car. I look out the window at all the angry farmers and citizens. What happened? What happened to this world?

As the car drives throughout the narrow, meandering roads of the island, I can feel myself getting closer and closer to my execution. I'm guessing they'll probably lock me up temporarily, prior to my death. Maybe my friend can find me in the cells, and bust me out. I doubt she know's where I am, though. However, if she knows anything about official punishment, she'll know to check the prisons. Hopefully. And, considering I'm not at the docks where she presumably is now, she'll probably figure I got caught up in something, such as the police force. I sigh as I think about my friend. We've only been separated for about fifteen minutes, but I miss her already. Most likely, I'll never see her again. And she'll probably be detained sooner or later, and then she'll probably either be killed like me or enslaved again. She could hop on the ship now, but knowing her, she'll probably come looking for me and miss the ship's departure. It's all my fault. I shouldn't have gotten caught.

I wonder what my parents will think when they find out about my death. Hell, I bet my father will attend my execution. My mother's more kindhearted, but my father was more disappointed in me than ever when he found out I was helping slaves. And when he finds out I'm mostly responsible for the island's havoc, I bet he'll be there, beer in hand, when my noose is tied, cheering for death to come to me already.

It isn't long before we arrive at the prison. I'm introduced to my temporary cell, a small, bleak space. I lie on my bed – it feels like a hard block of ice. At least it's not boiling in here like it is outside, though there is a barred window leading to hot sunlight. No one has tended to my head; blood still slowly trickles down from my temple. So, is my execution date tomorrow? Maybe I'll die of blood loss before then. . .

. . .The night drags on and on. No one has fed me, but I guess I don't need to be fed. I can't sleep. I keep waiting and hoping for my friend to appear outside the barred window, ready to melt through the metal with a swift flick of her paw. She never comes, though. I can only assume that she's already been restrained or shot, just like the rest of the rioters. The island seems to have quieted down. I guess all the rioters have been taken control of. Well that's just great.

The sun eventually rises. I didn't get a single hour of sleep, and I still feel horrible. After a few more hours of looking out the window of my dark and musty cave, praying for my friend to find me, a guard unlocks the gates and stands at the entrance of my cell. My heart is about to explode. It beats so rapidly that it sends uncomfortable tremors throughout my ribcage. The man emerges from the darkness of the outside corridor and approaches me. He then wraps my wrists behind my back with a durable rope. I'm then lead from my cell and towards the exit of the jail.

The sunlight greets me in all its bright and cheery glory. After what feels like eternity, the man reaches the end of his escorting: a large, dead tree that looms over a wooden platform (I think this platform served as the gallows long ago, before the noose's peg was removed for constitutional reasons; the faint outlines of the trapdoor are still visible). Of course, there's a crowd hollering at me angrily.

On such an island as this, death by hanging seems like it'd be considered wrong and highly unorthodox. So then why is everyone in favor of my hanging? Speaking of which, why can't I just repent for what I have done, so we can forget this entire thing?

I'm guided up the steps and onto the pallets. A poorly tied noose waits for me, hanging from one of the branches of the tree. They probably made this for me last night. The man works the rope around my neck. I take this last moment to look around, at all my old fellow island citizens. Suddenly, I'm no longer afraid to die. I don't want to live knowing that I've failed my attempt to redeem the world. I don't want to live knowing that several slaves have died on account of my initiative.

I'm sorry I let them down.

The guard is no longer on the boards. He now stands by with his hand on the trapdoor's lever (maybe the lever's too old to work properly). I recognize the policeman from yesterday among the crowd. He stares at me, eagerly waiting for the trapdoor to open. I look around for my parents. No, they're not here. Had my parents known anything about this, my mother would have objected my execution to the police, surely. One can only imagine what she and her husband are doing now. Evidently, they must be pretty oblivious to all the events that took place yesterday.

When is he going to push the lever? If they don't kill me soon, the suspense will do it for them.

...The boards of the platform beneath me begin to vibrate gently. This is it. I'm going to die. Moments later, the boards begin rattling violently. The crowd looks around, confused. The man guarding the lever seems to be just as puzzled as the crowd. Everything grows dark when something beastly and unidentifiable blocks out the sun like the moon during an eclipse. The silhouette then descends, allowing the sun to shine once more, and it becomes clear what the silhouette truly is:

A pokémon. To be exact, it's a—

"Legendary!" someone in the crowd shrieks at the top of their lungs.

The pokémon's white, sleek skin glistens in the light. Its flat, hand/wing-like appendages beat towards the ground, helping It stay in the air. It lets out a bellow of exasperation and disappointment as people begin to scatter in every which way in a state of panic. Before the people make it far though, the legendary lets out a shrill, ear piercing roar, aiming Its maw towards the scatterers. I cringe at the horrific sound. I think it's an attack of some sort. Whatever it is, it stops numerous people dead in their tracks. Clouds of blood burst from their temples and ears, and, for certain unlucky people, even out of their eyes. The natives collapse here and there on the ground.

The legendary, known as the almighty Lugia, beast of the hadal zone surrounding this chain of isles, ceases Its roar and tilts Its head to me. Something warm runs from my ear down my cheek. Dammit, Lugia, you're gonna kill me if you keep this up. But, the last thing I should be doing now is mentally scolding you. After all, you did finally answer my "prayers". I notice the lever guard has run off. While people still run here and there, occasionally running into one another, I use the opportunity to free myself from Death's necklace. At least I _try _to, anyway. My arms would help me, but they're still tied behind my back. It's useless.

Lugia lands on the dirt, sending dust up into the air. It takes another moment to look at me. While we exchange stares, my eyes drift off to Its back, where my friend clings onto one of Lugia's blue dorsal protrusions. She looks back at me and grins; her pearly fangs and her ruby eyes are perfectly clear from here, despite how we're a good distance away from each other. So, she _hasn't _been captured. Just in time, Lucario. Just in time.

Or so that's what I thought.

The policeman from yesterday still remains in the same place, but now there's a blue vein running along his forehead. He turns from Lugia to me, greatly incensed. He yells, "You! You-ou-ou-ou! You caused this!" as he charges towards the gallows. Funny how he went from being "all about compassion" to this. What's his problem all of a sudden? My attention immediately shifts from the officer to the bright flashes of Glocks and rifles, accompanied by the sounds of crackling gunpowder. Lugia hobbles about in confusion as It grunts and looks around, trying to decipher the source of the excruciating stinging that drills through Its body.

I open my mouth to warn It, but as I do so I feel my body fall through the wood. I drop a couple feet before the length of rope above runs out, and my body's reduced to a limp rag doll, bouncing up and down slightly, suspended in the air. One of my vertebra pops, and my neck is close to breaking, but due to the sloppiness of the makeshift scaffold, the height isn't quite enough to do the trick. I'm left hanging there, frantically kicking at the air and swinging around while I try to the best of my ability to prevent my strangulation. Everything surrounding the scaffold becomes dark, as if the planet's been enshrouded by a thick, gray smog. My mind begins to fade away... I can't... I can't hold out for much longer...

I think to myself, How did it become this way? What happened?

Suddenly, I find myself sitting on my lounge chair on my backyard beach like I had been weeks before, as if I have miraculously gone back in time, simultaneously losing all knowledge of the future. What just happened? I must've dosed off.

In my hands is my history book. Oh, no wonder I dosed off! This boring piece of garbage! I flip through the pages, gathering tidbits of information as I go.

1472. The first slave trade takes place, conducted by the Portuguese.  
1503. The Spanish and Portuguese replace Native American gold miners with African slaves in Central America and the Caribbean.  
1791. Eli Whitney patents the cotton gin, a tool used to clean the cotton that slaves pick, providing an easier and more efficient method of cotton cleaning. With the invention of this tool came the wider expansion of slavery.  
1820. The Missouri Compromise is established, abolishing slavery in Maine but letting Missouri remain a slave state, thus temporarily ending the feud between the North and the South.  
1831. Turner's Rebellion takes place, causing mass bloodshed in Southampton County. Lead by Nat Turner, enslaved Virginians attempt to start an uprising. All surviving slaves are hanged, including Turner.  
1863. Abraham Lincoln ratifies the Emancipation Proclamation, abolishing completely the enslavement of Africans.  
1868. The fourteenth amendment is ratified, allowing former African slaves citizenship.  
1879. The Subjugation Relief Act is brought into effect, replacing the newly freed African slaves and filling in their previous positions with "less sentient" beings (pokémon).


	2. Explanation of Our Hierarchy

1472. The first slave trade takes place, conducted by the Portuguese.

1503. The Spanish and Portuguese replace Native American gold miners with African slaves in Central America and the Caribbean.

1791. Eli Whitney patents the cotton gin, a tool used to clean the cotton that slaves pick, providing an easier and more efficient method of cotton cleaning. With the invention of this tool came the wider expansion of slavery.

1820. The Missouri Compromise is established, abolishing slavery in Maine but letting Missouri remain a slave state, thus temporarily ending the feud between the North and the South.

1831. Turner's Rebellion takes place, causing mass bloodshed in Southampton County. Lead by Nat Turner, enslaved Virginians attempt to start an uprising. All surviving slaves are hanged, including Turner.

1863. Abraham Lincoln ratifies the Emancipation Proclamation, abolishing completely the enslavement of Africans.

1868. The fourteenth amendment is ratified, allowing former African slaves citizenship.  
1879. The Subjugation Relief Act is brought into effect, replacing the newly freed African slaves and filling in their previous positions with "less sentient" beings (pokémon).

...I set the book down on the sand beneath my lounge chair. It isn't so much that I am fed up with reading it, but I am getting sick of everything slavery-related overall. Well, I tried to read a historical non-fiction, but the whole topic of slavery makes me feel ill. And the fact that it still continues today doesn't help ease my stomach.

Enslaving Africans in the first place was a heinous mistake, but replacing them with pokémon... We deemed pokémon as non-sentient beings who are willing to break their bones to serve us, even though I'm fairly sure _most _of the creatures are ten times smarter than us. No one realizes it, though. People these days just tend to ignorantly succumb to all that their idles (people with higher statuses than them) put into their minds and force them to believe. Everyone's been hypnotized, and sometimes I feel like I'm the only one unaffected by the authorities' mesmerizing, swinging pocket watches. The main reason for my unaltered independence, I think, is based on the fact that I am not a social person. I don't watch television, nor do I listen to the news. I have barely any friends, and my parents are rarely ever around. The times my parents _are_ around are usually for events that seldom take place, such as major holidays.

I relax my arms and let them lay on the sand. The gentle undulations of the waves against the rocks and sands of the beach never cease to ease me. Letting out a sigh, I sit up straight in the chair to get a better look at the horizon.

New Year's Day is approaching, meaning my parents will be coming home, as long as they aren't abruptly caught up in their jobs. Their airlines could also cancel due to snow, but I doubt it'd snow here. It could snow up north, where they work, but I heard it rarely snows up there anymore.

I hope their airline gets canceled.

Don't get me wrong, living by and having to take care of myself can be a pain. Sometimes, living by myself can even get a bit scary, especially since I live in a mansion. I swear, I haven't visited some of the floors in my house for weeks. When I do visit them, usually to do laundry or find supplies, it feels like I'm exploring vast catacombs or ruins or something along those lines. One misstep could lead to an arrow through my neck.

Why my parents bought such a grandiose monstrosity, I'll never know. I can only assume that they bought it because they had the money to. Their jobs pay well. Their immorally despicable jobs pay _very _well. What do they work as? They're assassins. They get paid huge amounts of money to round up pokémon and send them across oceans to their eventual demise, and that's how they assassinate them. The non-hyperbolical translation: My parents work in the slavery business. Selling slaves these days is like selling gold. Of course, it's extremely difficult to mine the gold, but it's worth it when you're there at that auction, advertising your ores to all the eager scum with hundred-bills at the ready in their grubby hands.

What's horrible is that there's no escaping slavery. Even in the Caribbean, where I live now, there are slave auctions. When I first came to this place, I was kind of hoping I'd be leaving the torturous horror that is slavery back in North America. The horror followed me though, clinging onto the underside of the plane and dangling there until the plane landed. Stepping out of the plane and onto the tarmac, I could feel it. I could sense the horror looming behind me from the shadows of the airplane. I could sense that nothing had changed. It was humid. The air was salty. The scenery was more vibrant... But it was all the same as North America nonetheless.

I remember my parents grinning down at me and me responsively looking up at them with contempt, because right there, at that very airport, was an auction stall. We had to pass by the stall to get to the baggage claim. All the recently captured pokémon sitting in their tiny cages, malaise as they'll ever be, were too ignorant to bust through the wires of their cells.

Pokémon are blinded by the loyalty they are expected to hold to their masters, when, in reality, they share no sincere bonds with humans. Alternating from owner to owner (being sold over and over again), they still give their current owner all their respect, too ignorant to attempt to overthrow them or start an uprising like Nat Turner once did. But hey, as long as their pokéballs are in the hands of someone, they have one instinct, and that is to obey the hand that feeds them and possesses their means of captivity: the vile, red and white, China-made contraptions that serve as their temporary cages.

«Explanation of Our Hierarchy»

I am close to drifting off to sleep when a bellowing noise in the distance disturbs me. My eyes slowly open. A black speck is visible moving along the horizon slowly. I lean forward groggily and try, to the best of my ability, to make out the spot. The glaring sun doesn't help. Finally, I'm able to conclude that it is, in fact, _not _a ship, but rather a lapras. "Wow," I murmur. I've never seen such a beautiful creature before. Too bad it's miles away. Its cries kind of remind me of a wailord's, matching their serene moans almost perfectly. I spend ten minutes staring at the sight in awe. If only I could get close to it. Maybe I should just take my kayak out to sea and get a better look, and if the sea swallows me up, the lapras can rescue me, because that's apparently what they were born to do: serve and aid us, the human race. But man, if I could just lay on its shell and have it take me off to sea...

I'm about to make for the kayak when something stops me, something that completely erases all my chances of encountering the lapras. Another silhouette is now visible in the distance, closing in on the creature. It's easy to distinguish the two silhouettes from one another, as one is a maritime, elegant being, and the other is a nautical, metal giant.

A ship, one would call it.

God, have mercy on the lapras. No... The ship's going after that lapras. Judging by the way the pokémon isn't changing its course of direction, either it isn't aware of the ship, or it doesn't see the ship as anything hostile. Even as the ship approaches the lapras, the lapras disregards it completely. I know what's going to happen next, so therefore there is no reason for me to watch anymore.

I stand up, history book in hand, and make my way up the wooden stairs from the sand to the backdoor of my house without looking back.

Every opportunity we have to make money, we will seize it without considering the consequences. You're probably wondering how a lapras can be used as a slave. It can't. No one uses pokémon with such anatomical structures for doing labor, but rather for clothing and decoration. I think slaves must be strictly bipedal. Maybe there are a few exceptions, but I'm not quite sure. Actually, lapras have been used before to transport cargo and to guide boats down canals, but that was a long time ago. Now that people are aware of their rarity and value, they'd rather dissect lapras for all they're worth. I heard their shells are priceless, and their skin makes quite a warm pair of boots. Come to think of it, there are certain instances where quadrupeds and other non-bipedal pokémon have been used as slaves. Electric-types such as jolteon and manectric are usually used for supplying power plants with the energy they need 24/7. Imagine constantly having to exert tremendous amounts of energy over a span of 24 hours. If you can't do it, the plant workers will deem you unfit, like a ponyta with a single broken limp, and put you down.

If there's a species of pokémon that isn't constantly hunted down by humans, they must be living at the bottom of the sea (in other words, they have yet to be discovered). The reason humanoids are sought after for enslavement is because they can do all that Africans can do and more, with the help of their advanced strength and adeptness. Send them to the fields or make them haul crates, as long as they're not Africans! Using black people as slaves would be morally wrong, but using pokémon, that's another story!

A while back, here on the island, a charmeleon was being used to transport luggage from boat to dock and vise versa. Suddenly, for unknown reasons, it evolved into a charizard. With such scrawny arms, the charizard would have never been able to lift luggage, and because there were no other jobs available for it, it was simply killed and sold to the owner of the island's museum, a scales specialist. The creature couldn't be used on the fields – it'd burn the crops. Had there been a fossil fuel power plant on the island, the dock owners would have reconsidered killing it, but this island's electricity relies on winds rather than fires. And of course, the dock owners couldn't just release it into the wilderness. Pokémon are technically finite, so they must be used for one thing or another, be it enslavement or a food source.

Years after the abolition of African slavery, our pathetic human race decided, "Nah, we can't do shit without slaves!" So we ratified the RSA, an act as nefarious as the antecedent enslavement of black people. The creation of this act just tells me how the human race hasn't learned at all from its mistakes. What's more disgusting is how the North of America didn't protest against it like they did with black slavery. "Well hey," the North said. "Pokémon don't have feelings, so we have no problem with enslaving them. Up here, we have our [Great Britain's] Industrial Revolution, so we're set. But as long as the South isn't enslaving humans, we couldn't care less what they do."

All pokémon that don't belong to the bipedal category are either eaten, worn, or used as ornamental kitsches. Seel, for example, cannot tend to crops. However, they do make "fashionable" coats. Scarves now come in all different stylish shapes and colors; eevee scarves start at one hundred dollars, ninetales at two. Miltank are eaten often, as well as most Flying-types and Water-types. You can cut the shells off your corphish with your new skarmory wing knife. Buttered corphish is considered a delicacy. I don't know why. To me, corphish doesn't taste good at all. But then again, everyone has a different look on things. And it just so happens that I am the only person who sees pokémon slavery just as cruel as black slavery! Isn't it great being unique?

I stand in the high-vaulted living room, silently ruminating by myself. Living on an island hasn't been very good for my social life. Sure, since the island is small, everyone knows each other, but I try to conceal myself in the depths of my mansion most of the time. It's not because I'm shy – hah! Not at all! You saw me just now consider meeting the lapras. I'm not shy. Choosing to be reclusive is based on something much more deeper than just being _shy_. If you haven't noticed by now, I hate most humans. All our goddamn mistakes being made one after another are leading, slowly and insidiously, to the inevitable destruction of life as we know it. Here's what I think: We started with black slavery, with whites on top, and then we progressed to pokémon slavery, with whites _and _blacks on top. So, if this pattern continues, then that means pokémon are soon to control _us_! I know they can do it. They're definitely smart enough to. They just have to see through the hypnotizing powers of the pokéball. When this will happen, I don't know for sure. But it'll happen. Oh, it'll happen.

Feeling a bit lonely all of a sudden, I decide to call my friend – my only friend on the island. I dial her number in my phone while the reminiscence of an old song reverberates through my head.

...Build your penitentiary, we build your schools,  
brainwash education to make us the fools.  
Hate is your reward for our love,

telling us of your God above.

We gonna chase them crazy baldheads out of the town...

My friend picks up on the other end. Her harsh voice startles me. I tell her we should meet up, and she gladly accepts. On my way to pick her up, I stop by Pusser's briefly. The woman at the counter, I think her name is Barbara, seems surprised to see me.

"Oh Honey, it's been so long," she complains.

I nod my head, aware of my abnormally-prolonged absence from being in that bar. Just seeing my face around town is becoming a breathtaking anomaly, but I can't help it if I don't want to be seen by people.

"Let me guess," Barbara says with a smug smirk. "You want the mango, _mm_?"

I don't look at her, but instead eye the pitiful machop as it struggles to swab the dirtied tables on the far side of the restaurant. I let out a defeated sigh of sorrow, before saying, "Nah... Today, I'll have a large rum punch."

Barbara replies with a soft laugh, before proceeding to fiddle with the bar machines and tequila dispensers. I turn from the machop to Barbara curiously. She seems to be working on something... It's only when I see her take the carton of punch from its freezer does my jaw fall open. Is she... getting me a rum punch? I'm only one year under the legal drinking age on the island, but still... There wasn't even a requisition for my ID! I decide to go with it. Barbara hands me my drink and it's gone within ten minutes. Wow. Did not expect her to give me alcohol. But then again, I practically live in the most permissive chain of isles in the world. I lay money on the counter and begin to test my movements. To my relief, I'm not even tipsy. I thank Barbara and leave her and the machop.

I feel a bit better now, for once. I can feel a sense of peace greet me along with the daylight. I just hope I'm able to drive. . .

. . .Back when I was living in the mainland of North America, my family (who lived with me at the time) owned an eevee. Good Lord, those things are cute. Especially when they look up at you, reins flanking from the scruffs of their necks, and give you those sad, pleading eyes, as if to say, "Please, make it stop..." Eevee worked for us, constantly transporting freight from complex to complex around the estate via rein and sleigh. Sad thing is, when there wasn't snow on the ground—which was very rare during those years—my parents would still make Eevee transport the freight, despite how her sleigh was made specifically for snow. I'd go outside and see two lines running up the hill, carved into the unusually-exposed loam that was the estate's grass. And halfway up the hill would be Eevee, panting, distressed.

I remember when Eevee first came to the estate. My father called me down to the living room and presented to me a box, cloaked under a red towel. A faint scratching noise emitted from within the cardboard which sparked my interest. I eagerly lifted the towel, revealing the furry neonate within. It was balled up, in a fetal position like a frightened caterpie. I slowly reached into the box and caressed her soft fur until she stuck her paw out and dragged her nails along the cardboard like she had done before. She looked up at me with tired eyes. Those eyes. I could never forget those eyes, two brown saucers existing among a background of silky fur. Eevee yawned, unintentionally flashing her set of small teeth. I began scratching her neck, which seemed to please her immensely.

My father then closed the box on my hand, forcing me to recoil. I gave him a questioning glare and was about to protest when he waved a finger at me.

"Once she grows up a bit more, he'll be working the sled," my father explained. "To be honest, I was hoping for something bigger, but they didn't have much of a variety of species for auction. All they had was this darn four-legger. I swear, I bet I could catch more pokémon in a day than they could in a week." This was before my parents took jobs as Pokémon Pursuers. This was also before it was uncommon for quadrupeds to work for humans.

I glowered at my father incredulously. I couldn't say anything though. Upon seeing the eevee, I had thought she was going to be our pet. Being a young boy then, I didn't know any better.

Disregarding the advised purpose of Eevee's stay at the estate, I treated her like a pet in secret. I'd sneak her food every night, and I'd occasionally let her sleep with me. When my parents weren't home, I would even go so far as to do Eevee's work for her. She would yip her thanks and nuzzle against my ankle. But when she was working, she'd cock her head at me, causing the reins around her neck to tighten, and give me such an overtly pained expression that it would bring a tear to my eye. She didn't want to slave all day. What pokémon would? I think I was the only human Eevee truly respected. But I think my father eventually caught on to me feeding Eevee, and, well, things went downhill from there...

The creak of the car's door thankfully brings my woeful reverie to an end. Gloria sits down on the passenger seat.

"I thought you were picking me up thirty..." she trails off. With a sigh and a flutter of her hand, she dismisses the thought.

"Yeah, well, I got caught up in something. Instead of yelling at me, why don't you go nuts over the fact that this is the first time we've seen each other in weeks?" I playfully punch her shoulder.

Gloria is silent for a moment before realizing that, yes, we have not, in fact, seen each other in a long time. "Oh, Mian, where have you been?" she cries.

I smile and shrug. To be honest, _I_ don't even know where I've been – figuratively. On the island, there isn't really a school. There's an elementary school that doubles as a church, but nonetheless it isn't much of a school to speak of. The absence of school hasn't really helped my social life. Back in North America, I had plenty of friends before I left Middle School. I haven't been an outcast my _whole _life, sheesh. I happened to meet Gloria by chance a while back. I was sitting cross-legged on the white sands of the island's west-coastal beach, soaking up the sun. I eyed a native from afar. She eyed me back. Because we were both visibly around the same age, we were automatically drawn together like magnets. I had an unusual whim to befriend someone at that moment, fortunately for Gloria.

Living a solitary life has been going fine for me. There are times of frustration and psychological distress, but other than that, I am perfectly sane. Perfectly. Sane.

"Where do you want to go?" I ask Gloria.

A stray hair has made its way over her face. She pushes it away with a grin, and says, "Yuet Sage. Let's go."

"Yuet Sage?" I repeat. "I've never been there before."

"_Really_? O Mama, you are missing out!"

Yuet Sage it is, then. Also known as Sage Mountain, Yuet Sage is the only location on the island consisting a rainforest-like climate. The rest of the island is dry and sandy. I've lived on this island for several years, but not once have I visited this mountain. After all, this island is fairly large, if not larger than the rest that make up the archipelago. Also, enclosing myself on my property would explain why the other half of the island is like the dark side of the moon to me.

You know, I've been living here for a while now. I expected I'd get bored of this place after living here long enough, but, to my surprise, I still love it just as much (despite how it's a slave island). As long as I'm not camping out, I can cope. And besides, I'd rather wade through waist-deep water than waist-deep snow.

I've been driving for a while now. Every once in a while, my eyelids tend to droop, but I'm able to keep them open. Gloria guides me through the steep, winding roads. She herself hasn't been to Sage Mountain in a while, so it's no wonder that we get lost. She frantically taps her nails against the dashboard, beginning to grow impatient. Is she... getting mad at _me_? Listen Sister, it's not my fault we're lost. Gloria can be a little restless at times. Restless and vehement. And irritable. And annoying. And oblivious. And naïve... Oh, is there any human being I can truly respect? I'm horrible, I know. But no, Gloria's a sweetheart, she really is.

I turn up a particularly narrow road and proceed up it, all the while Gloria is babbling in my ear about how she "could have sworn it was left, right, right, under the tunnel, and left". My temple pulses wildly. Gloria's incessant jiving and the burst of blood throughout my head is all I can hear. I'm about to shush her when I realize the road my car just traversed up has abruptly ended at a house's garage. What kind of road is this? I twist my body around to look out the car's trunk's window. It's a long way down to the main road. I let out an exasperated groan and put the car in reverse.

"Well that's weird," Gloria states.

I concur while keeping my eye on the road behind. My car moves backwards ever so slowly. Gaining confidence, I speed up a little, entering a steady pace down the hill. I slam the brake, forcing Gloria's body back into her seat.

"What happened?"

I gasp and mutter, "Jesus," under my breath. I step out of the car and creep down the hill. There, in the middle of the road, stands a small, blue, unidentifiable creature. It has some odd, dark-gray growth dangling from its left wrist, and it has another dark-gray growth infused onto its neck. Its crimson eyes, full of pure fear, stare at the rear of my car. It doesn't stir, it just stands there, paralyzed from the site of the metal titan that nearly killed it. I flap my hands at it, trying to shoo it off so I can continue down the hill.

Gloria gets out of the car and now stands on the opposite side of the road as me. "That's a riolu," she murmurs, placing a hand on her cheek.

I've seen riolu before, but none of them had such protrusions on their bodies. As I creep closer, I can now see what the body's "oddities" really are: they're made of metal, much like the aired bones on the riolu's arms, but these metals are inorganic, as in they're man-made.

Shackles and a collar. Disgusting. The ends of the shackles still seem to be smoldering as they melt and drip onto the concrete below. I hold my hands out so as not to spook the thing. It gives me no attention, and continues gawking at the car.

Then, it happens. My car starts rolling downwards slightly. It gains a bit of speed before I fully notice it. Gloria screams. I look from the car to the riolu in panic. Come on, Damian, do something. Don't just stand there, do something, dammit! The car is still slow enough to seize, but I can't move. My mind becomes a spectacular blur of jumbled thoughts. I can't think straight... I-I...

Finally, I do something. I make a terrible mistake, but at least I _do something_... Without thinking, I run towards the riolu, grab it, and leap out of the way before the car crushes us. With the stunned riolu in my arms, I watch, mouth agape, as my car rolls down the road until it reaches the main road, where it crosses it perpendicularly (luckily not harming any other cars passing by) and crashes into the metal road rail, dispersing a brilliant array of sparks and shrapnel everywhere. The rail was installed to prevent cars from driving off the road, off the cliff, and into the ocean. Now, it bulges out above the water and is in need of replacing. It momentarily suspends my car in the air, before it begins to break apart. From up on the hill, I see my car finally break through the rail and start its unconditional tumble downwards, out of site. I hear a couple crashes, the sound of metal on rock, followed by a thunderous explosion of water. The riolu involuntarily jerks about in my arms at the sound of the splash, before it reverts back to its inanimate state, a limp, blue pillow in my arms.

After an uncomfortable minute of silence, I turn to Gloria, whose hand now covers her mouth. She looks back at me and away from the wreck. I can't find words. I might as well explain myself. "I left the... the... I left the car in drive."

"Why would you do that when you leave your car!?" Gloria gasps, obviously astonished by my stupidity.

Dammit, why can't I think properly? I try to calm her down, but I only end up spluttering gibberish about the emergency brake. The smell of burning rubber reaches my nose. "You smell that? I _did _put the brake on! Why it rolled away, I don't know!" My voice rises. "It was some old Suzuki; it wasn't reliable anymore anyway!"

Gloria brings her hand to her face. Sighing, she suggests, "We should get out of here before we have to pay for that guardrail. But on second thought, we should return that riolu before we get in even _bigger_ trouble."

"What? No..." I hug the pokémon tighter to my chest. I back up from the road. "We can't just give it back."

"Of course we must. Mian, give it to me." She beckons me with the flicking of her fingers.

I back away even more. And now, I commit the second most stupid act today: I turn and dart for the trees. Gloria screams after me. . .

. . .I find it amazing how I can predetermine my entire fate with just one false action. The hierarchy's going to want my neck now. They're going to want my neck broken, as in I'm going to get executed. The only way the hierarchy would not come after me is if Gloria doesn't tell anyone about this, but I know she will. And this is not likely something that would just be condoned by the hierarchy. This island isn't small, but it's not big either. I look above at the canopy of the trees. This whole mountain must be Yuet Sage. Who knew? Who knew Gloria and I were so close to our destination? Had we gone up the right road at that time, I might have been able to keep my life. My dull, forlorn life. I lower my head and stare at the blue cushion, who rests against a tree a couple meters away. Actually, 'rest' isn't a fitting term for it. The cushion stares back with its gleaming, red eyes. It's still stunned and unable to make out any expression. I don't expect it to show me any gratitude, not any time soon anyway.

I'm not even sure if it's aware I just killed myself trying to help it.


	3. It's Complicated Being a Wizard

I brought my hand up to rub the underneath of Eevee's chin, eliciting ecstatic whines of joy from the little thing. She closed her eyes and seemed to drift off spiritually, leaving her body behind, for she had rarely been shown such affection. It's funny how, because these furry creatures are so soft, one would think them as beings that were born into this world with one sole purpose: to be pet by us. Pillows are made to comfort us, just like blankets are made to warm us. But no, we'd never stoop so low as to give inhuman creatures any form of affection. Affection is for our own kind, and slavery is for pokémon.

Eevee stuck her face towards the sky more and more as I scratched her neck. Her mouth was curved in a way that somewhat resembled the emoticons that people type on their social networks – the colon followed by the digit three. I couldn't help but laugh. I cupped my hand over my mouth, realizing the noise I just made could potentially attract unwanted attention from my parents, who were supposedly sleeping in the next room. After a moment of keeping quiet, listening for any shuffling or footsteps coming from my parents' room, I gave my attention to Eevee once more.

Eevee let out a whimper. I hushed her, whispering, "You've worked hard today. Here." I stuffed my hand into the back pocket of my jeans. Eevee looked on expectantly. She shifted her body diagonally so she could peer at my hand, which emerged shortly after with the dry leftovers from supper. I put my hand under Eevee's chin, but I didn't touch her this time. Instead, with a smile, I waited for her to react. She stared at me blankly, as if questioning what I was doing. Then, she lowered her head and sniffed at the dry food curiously. After confirming that it was, indeed, edible food, a small flash of pink tissue appeared from her maw, which flicked at the food and then warily retreated back into its cave.

Eevee swished her tongue around in her mouth. It was true! It _was _food! She gazed up at me skeptically with furrowed brows that hinted towards her lack of understanding.

I nodded. "You've been a good girl," I murmured under my breath. "This is for you. A little extra from the table."

Eevee hesitated, then dove in, eating from my cupped hand as if she hadn't eaten in days – which was plausible, considering my parents hardly ever fed her anything substantial. She finished off the morsels in seconds, so I reached around to my pocket to fish what was left out. She stared at me with incredulous eyes. Big, round, saucerless, incredulous eyes.

"Yes, more." As she continued eating, I reached around with my spare hand to retrieve the leftovers from my _other _pocket. Every time I presented her with another hand of food, she grew more and more astonished and more and more elated. "Good... Good... You don't get fed much do you? I'll feed you a little bit from the table every night. I can't stand to see you starve anymore. Besides, you've been getting less and less hauls done by the day. You can't keep hauling if you're weak."

Eevee responded by nuzzling up against the crook of my arm.

On the last handful, Eevee suddenly stopped eating. Her head shot up and stared down something behind me. Her back arched, and her fur puffed out like it had been surged with static electricity. Then I began to panic. My heart thumped in my chest as I mentally scanned through the possibilities of what could be lurking behind me that got Eevee's exclusive attention. There weren't many possibilities; only one thing came to mind. As I began to rotate my head, the dark outline of a tall figure gradually became visible as it loomed in the now-open doorway. With balled fists, the intimidating entity glared down at me, disappointed.

After that night, I still continued to feed the eevee occasionally, though I couldn't fully live up to my promise, for obvious reasons. I had been caught – first time, too. And that marked the initial start for the decline of my relationship with my father. He's a brawny and strict man, and he looks like he cuts wood for a living (he probably would, too, if it wasn't for the fact that wood cutting is invariably a job for timburr slaves). He could scare off whole packs of thugs by merely flexing his biceps. He never scared me though, that son of a bitch. When I was little, I respected him. I had no choice. With such a contrast of body size, he'd throw me halfway 'round the world! But I've grown to learn that he's nothing to be afraid of. . .

. . .I slowly open my eyes. The sun, glistening green through the semitransparent foliage above, is bright, despite how the canopy is fairly dense in this forest. The first thing that comes to my conscious mind is how my back is in a whole lot of pain. Probably because I've been sleeping with my spine perpendicular to my thighs and legs. And to top it all off, the rough bark of the tree I've been leaning on has left deep imprints on my skin.

Feeling the soft loam beneath me, I wonder to myself why I didn't just sleep flat on the ground. I wasn't in my right mind yesterday... Speaking of which, what happened yesterday? Let's try to recap.

I woke up. I tried to read a book (vainly). I saw a lapras get hunted down by fishermen. I got a song stuck in my head. I drank rum (oh... Well, shit). I tried to drive Gloria to Yeut Sage, but we got lost. My car took off without me and flew off a cliff, never to be seen again. I ran away.

Is that it? I feel like I'm missing something. Something important, something that mainly holds responsible for why I ran away in the first place. I tilt my head to my left, letting out a gasp when my sore, stubborn neck refuses to move much. Then I tilt my head to the right, in order to loosen my neck a bit more. My eyes immediately fall on a furry, blue creature, lying in a fetal position against the same tree I'm leaning on. And then everything comes back to me, just like that. As my mind gets overflowed with the vast knowledge of yesterday, my breathing becomes rapid. I forgot, I'm going to be hunted down by the officials – if this island even has any. Committing such an disloyal and treasonous act will be sure to get me in prison or executed. I might as well have assassinated the Queen!

Okay Damian, get a hold of yourself. Don't jump straight to conclusions. The only person who knows about your making off with a slave is Gloria. She wouldn't tell anyone, surely. Although, she might get people to search for me as an act of intended avail, thinking I could be getting hurt out in the wilderness. Yeah, like anything out here's gonna hurt me, sis. The only organisms on this mountain are me, the riolu, and forty-thousand square-feet of concentrated botany. Let's just hope no man-eating victreebell have remained unnoticed by the humans.

As I begin to regain composure, I look back at the sleeping riolu. It looks quite peaceful, although the remains of its shackles look to be a little uncomfortable. I might as well try to pry them off when it awakens. I remember falling asleep last night thinking that the riolu will probably be gone before the morning, having run off promptly after deciding whether I pose a threat or not (in that case it would have decided upon the former), despite how I saved its ass from being steamrolled by my car. I even sacrificed my car in order to save it, albeit I wasn't thinking properly.

I'm actually really surprised it's still here. What's even more interesting is that it changed location in the night. Before, it sat across from me against another tree during our prior-to-bedtime staring competition. Now it seems to have moved closer. I take no further thought of it as I reposition myself on the soft rainforest floor and close my eyes again.

So… Remember when I told you "I'd be fine with living anywhere, as long as I'm not camping out"?

Well, I'm camping out. . .

«It's Complicated Being a Wizard»

. . .I awake again, but it takes me a moment to open my eyes. I'm still a bit tired. I get the feeling that something's watching me. I open my eyes and am greeted by two abyssal pupils surrounded by two large rubies. I jolt upright with a start. "Ey! Scared me."

The riolu stares at me intently.

"You still paralyzed, are you?"

No response.

"You're safe, okay?" I try to comfort the thing by slowly reaching out my hand. It seems to shy further and further away as my hand nears it. "Don't worry, I won't hurt you. I'm not one of those slavers; I'm just a kid. That big old car is gone, so you don't have to worry." Finally, it allows my hand onto its fur. I gently caress its cheek and chin, like I used to with Eevee. Its lids fall until its eyes resemble two multicolored half moons. It seems to enjoy being petted, just like Eevee once did. I can imagine it sure isn't used to it.

"What happened to you? How'd you get free? I've never heard of a pokémon, you know, betraying their master. So what urged you to do it?"

The riolu raises its lids and looks upwards, pondering about my question. When it stares down, back to me, it has a helpless expression on its face, hoping for me to get its gist – that it can't really answer my question, presumably because it just frankly doesn't know the answer to it.

"I understand. You were just caught in the heat of the moment, huh?" I raise my hand to where its ear is, so I can play with it like Eevee used to let me do. Out of nowhere, the riolu twists its head at light speed and clamps its teeth around my thumb. I cringe and lower my head. I try hard not to recoil, unless I want to spook it. It doesn't hurt that much. It stings and draws a little bit of blood, but I patiently wait it out. "Oh," I stammer, shaking nervously. "I'm s-sorry... I didn't... mean to..." Finally, its tense hold subsides and it slowly releases my thumb. It looks at the ground, ashamed. Its eyes occasionally dart back up to me before looking away just as quickly.

I laugh while I wipe the specks of blood onto the ground. "You got quite a bite there, for someone your size. I hope you don't have rabies." Hopefully, me not recoiling has earned its trust. Had I panicked and quailed, or had I swatted at it in self defense, it may have run off and eventually died. "A fierce bite like _that _could only mean one thing: you're hungry." Or you just hate me. I scan our surroundings. Tropical moss hangs from trees that wriggle around through the air like serpentine pokémon. Nothing to eat there. I flinch as my eyes fall upon three bananas not too far away. My body goes numb. "Tropius," I hiss at the riolu. "Don't move. Those things trample people."

The riolu raises an eyebrow and cautiously looks around in all directions. After a moment, it gently tugs at my shirt.

"Oh, right," I say, embarrassed. I forgot, there's no wildlife here. Then that means that those bananas aren't the growths that protrude from the tropius' neck, but rather real, edible bananas! I get to my feet and slink towards the tree bearing the fruit – which looks nothing like a 250 pound dinosaur up close. Banana trees aren't particularly tall, so it's easy for me to pluck the fruit straight off their nodes. I sloppily break one of them in half and give one half and a whole to the riolu, who takes them and eyes them warily.

I peel what's left of the skin on my half and begin eating. The riolu copies me and stuffs the fruit into its mouth. After it finishes, it takes to eating the peels that it previously disposed of onto the forest floor. I can't help but laugh. The riolu winces at the boisterous noise. I see, it's still a little timid. I guess it can't help it, considering what it has gone through. Speaking of which, how am I supposed to get the shackles off it? I ask it what it thinks.

The pokemon holds its paw in the air, observing the metal, which had cooled over night and is no longer dripping. The chains rattle noisily as the pokémon swings its paw around. With an annoyed grunt, it lays the shackled arm on the ground. Then, with a protracted claw, enshrouded in a dull, purple haze, proceeds to swipe at the shackle. The metal begins to audibly crackle, signifying that the Shadow Claw is doing the trick. However, after a moment of searing the shackle _as well as _its fur, it lets out a yelp. It then bats its paw helplessly at the air in an attempt to stop its skin from burning.

I can do nothing but stare as the riolu whimpers and lams its seething paw at the mossy earth. A minute passes before it has fully recollected itself. "Kah!" it groans in defeat.

"Hey, don't do that. If you go any further, you could melt your hand off," I advise. My warnings go unheeded as the pokémon continues to scratch at its chains. I slowly grab a hold of the arm executing the Shadow Claw before it can do any more damage, minding not to startle it and have it bite me again. "Listen, we'll get the shackles off, but you can't do that. Your claw attack may have worked on – this part," I gesture to the melted excess part of the shackle, "but that's because these chains weren't so close to your body. Try to claw your wrist shackle off, and you'll just be mutilating yourself. Try to claw at your metal collar, and you'd probably cut your head off.

"We can find something to slather onto your wrist, and, with luck, we'll be able to ease the shackle off. We can't do anything about your collar. We'd need its key to open it."

The riolu is now visibly hyperventilating.

I sigh and stroke its cheeks again, which seems to calm it down a tad. It still whines, so I decide to bring it closer, gently wrapping my arms around it and allowing it to rest against my chest.

So, what am I supposed to do now? Hide in the forest forever? Return to my house and be bombarded by police (if there even are any of this island)? I really shouldn't have done this.

But then I look down at the innocent creature in my arms, and suddenly I remember, at long last, why I did this in the first place: it's a living animal; it breathes just like us; it eats just like us; it sleeps just like us; it has a conscious mind and it's sentient just like humans.

Okay, so I've rescued and am somewhat parenting a slave. How am I supposed to live my life out in the jungle? There's a bounty of fruits and things along those lines, but I can't live out here, vulnerable to the natural elements. So, what are my options?

After thinking long and hard, an idea comes to me. Maybe, I can somehow urge the slave population to fight back against their owners. I might as well try. "Riolu," I whisper.

The pokémon's ear flicks about.

"You evolve into something...uh, bigger, right? A lucario, right?"

Riolu (what I've decided to start calling it) exhales through its nose in response.

"Good. I've heard lucario can communicate with humans using telepathy, yeah? Can you use telepathy?"

Riolu shakes its head slightly.

"Well damn. Okay, if I can somehow find a way to evolve you, maybe you'll be able to talk to me then. How does that sound?"

"Hnn?" Riolu questions.

"What would you say if I told you we should start a rebellion? If you can use telepathy, it'd be easier for me to get messages through you to the targeted pokémon, and vise versa. Not to mention you'd be stronger and tougher, and you'd appear more worthy of leading an army of pokémon. I know _I _wouldn't be too fond of having a little one like you guide my country." I've never actually seen a lucario before. I hope they're a little more intimidating than riolu...

The pokémon is silent in my arms. Maybe I have overflowed it with too much responsibility. I doubt it could work – I doubt I'd be able to pull off such a stunt. But if one pokémon could see through the hypnotizing power of their pokéball and master, then more are capable of doing the same thing. I remember Eevee and all the torture she went through; she knew what she was doing wasn't right, but she felt it was her duty to obey my parents, as if God had created her to do exactly that, but she _knew_ what she was doing wasn't right nonetheless. If we can successfully encourage enslaved pokémon, then we can hopefully incite the biggest—and bloodiest—rebellion in history – bigger than Turner's Rebellion and others of that sort. Finally, Riolu shifts restlessly about in my grasp and lets out a faint, guttural moan, as if to reluctantly accept my offer.

"Don't worry, we'll be fine, Riolu, come on. If we can manage to scare enough people, maybe slavery will be abolished."

Riolu shrugs, too overwhelmed by the rapture of being secure in my arms to react enthusiastically.

"Oh, be a little optimistic, would you?" I scan the canopy above, hoping to spot something more to eat. My eyes fall upon a tall tree, whose branches bear a large, round fruit, similar to a wrinkly grapefruit. "Ah, something more substantial!" I stand up, still holding onto Riolu, and walk up to the base of the tree. Looking up, I realize just how far up the fruits are and that there's no way we can reach them by any means, unless Riolu was to use one of its attacks, preferably a long-range one. I set it down. It looks up at me groggily. "You think you can get those fruit down from there?" I ask, pointing to the fruit above.

Riolu creeps up to the tree and tests the bark's malleability with its claws. Now surrounded by that eerie, purple glow again, its claws dig into the bark and it begins to scale its way upwards. Well, I was thinking of having it shoot the fruit down with a laser of some sort, but this works too, as long as it's careful. It Shadow Claws the fruit from their stems when it reaches their branches. The fruit thuds on the moss before me, notifying me that breakfast's second course is ready.

When Riolu returns to the forest floor unharmed, I ask it if it wants to Shadow Claw the fruit open as well. It rolls its eyes and slices through one of the fruits with ease, leaving it in two cleanly lacerated hemispheres. The inside of the fruit is colored a gradient of dark brown at its core, to a lighter brown around its edges. Breadfruit. Yes, that's a real fruit. It's not citric, nor is it even sweet. It's carbonic, in fact, hence its name. Perfect for filling up the stomach, whereas other fruits may cleanse one's innards, but don't serve as anything solid enough to live off of.

While we eat, I decide to (officially) introduce myself. "My name's Damian. I'm from Labrador. Where did you get shipped from?"

Riolu thinks for a moment, before motioning towards the sky with its paw, voicing its _kah_s and _ah_s.

"You come from the sky? You mean you live north of here?"

The pokémon nods.

"How far?" I ask it.

It stretches its arms fully outward, displaying its fathom.

"So, a far way, you mean?"

Once again it nods in confirmation.

"How was the boat ride over?"

Riolu shivers uncomfortably. It looks down, straining its eyes to keep themselves aimed at mine. I get the feeling it doesn't want to keep the charades up anymore, as if I caused it to remember some traumatizing stuff or something. But then, Riolu brings its paw to its open mouth, and sends it outwards, reenacting regurgitation.

I laugh. "I'm sorry it didn't go too well," I say, still chuckling a bit.

Riolu smiles and laughs with me. I don't know why we're laughing. Nothing here's funny.

I settle and return to thinking about the 'rebellion'. I begin sending question after question out to the riolu, most of which are about its telepathy and its future form, such as "can you telepathize to multiple others at a time?", "does telepathy hurt?", "are lucario powerful?", "how many languages can you speak in?", and so on. Most questions are responded to with unhelpful shrugs and blank stares. "So... How do we evolve you, first of all?"

Riolu brings its paws to its chin in contemplation. It then gets in a stance and spars with the air, sending out a flurry of punches.

What's gotten into it? "You punch things to evolve? You mean you fight? Pokémon fight to evolve?" I laugh. "That's the most ridiculous thing. I've never heard of that. You must mean something else." I position myself on my stomach, facing Riolu. "You're gonna need to get better at those charades if you want to communicate with me. I'm not a psychic wizard... Not yet anyway."

Did that seem too conceited?

"Okay, let's forget about the evolution thing for the moment. First thing's first: let's get that shackle off, and then we should find some water."

I'm not too knowledgable when it comes to the production of lye and sorts, and because of this, I have a remarkably hard time trying to get Riolu's shackle off. Without any lye or oils, I can't really "ease" the clamped metal off, especially when the girth of its paw is larger than that of its wrist. It's also remarkably hard trying to pry the metal off when the reluctant riolu keeps flailing and biting at your fingers. As alliteratively pleasant as it sounds, a reluctant riolu is anything _but _pleasant. In the end, trying to pry off the shackle is proved as useless. And to make matters worse, there's no sign of a river, pond, or anything on the mountain (so it's not like lye or oil—needed with water in order to form the slick, soapy substance—would do anything anyway). All rainwater slides right down the slopes. The only water we find on the mountain is the water gathered in small, cupped leaves from the rain.

Yeut Sage is trapped on all sides by roads and towns. If we were to search further for any rivers, we could end up – well... You know.

So this is a problem. The scarcity of water is a problem because I am very thirsty right now. As the day progresses, I can feel myself verging delirium. I'd need a few more days to officially reach rapturous dementia, but still. . .

. . .By now, the sun has set, and the moon is most likely somewhere in the sky, probably hiding behind the leaves and mosses of the trees. We've basically been getting our water from the star fruits flourishing here and there. "Sorry about your shackle," I say to Riolu as I lay down on the mossy ground.

Riolu waves it off as it copies me and lays down, meters away.

"I mean, I guess you can try your Shadow Claw, as long as you're really, really careful."

Riolu murmurs quietly and shrugs it off. I guess it's too tired to try it again now, though I can't imagine how uncomfortable it must be sleeping with that thing chafing against its skin like that.

"Well... Goodnight, then." I hope it doesn't rain in the night. We don't really have a shelter, unless you consider the lush canopy our roof. . .

. . .I keep having this recurring dream where I'm standing on a small lot of sand, surrounded by a vast, unusually calm ocean. Everywhere I turn, I see nothing but the horizon, separating the cyan sky from the indigo sea. After a moment of doing nothing but waiting for what is to lucidly come, it finally happens, just like it always does in every other identical dream. The earth begins to quake, and there's a spot in the distance where the water begins to bubble. Suddenly, a white beast explodes from the sea and roars, and I cry out, quailing slightly, "You're a god, are you not? You can talk to the pokémon, can you not?" And the beast replies, with a booming voice, "When the time is right, young one, I will arrive, in my corporeal body, and that is all there is to be said."

This always upsets me. I shout for the beast to give me details, but it remains silent for the rest of my dream. It just kind of hovers midair, flapping its wings and gazing at me and my little island. After a frustrating minute passes by, I usually find myself in my bed – in this case, I find myself on the forest floor, with a blue mammal pressing its nose against my shirt's chest pocket.

I groan and raise my head to see what its problem is. It backs off upon realizing I'm awake. I sit up groggily and reach into the pocket. I pull out a folded-up paper and unfold it, revealing the chicken scratch handwriting of my father. It smells strongly of whiskey, so it's no wonder the riolu found it. "Sorry, kiddo. No whiskey for you." I sigh and quickly read over the letter.

_Damian,_

_ Hope you've been faring well. You'll be happy to know your mother and I are returning for New Year. I'm excited to see how my boy has grown since I saw him last. Hopefully, you've matured, to _[sic]_. Being in the slave-trade business has been very rewarding, as usual. I hope that one day you'll follow in your father's footsteps, eh? Yeah? _

The rest of the letter mostly consists of unimportant, drunkard ramblings.

..._Hope you had a good Christmas._

_ With love, Dad._

Dad, if you really didn't think I wasn't mature before, then you wouldn't have given me an entire mansion to take care of. To be honest, I'm not really sure why I was given the house to take care of alone in the first place. That's dangerous! I guess my parents care more about their jobs than me.

They'll be coming to this island soon. And when they do come, they'll notice my unusual absence, and they'll surely react one way or another. I have no more need for the letter, so I crumple it up and dispose of it for the forest to claim.

Riolu creeps slyly to the paper and sniffs it curiously. It then jerks its head upwards as its small, black nose registers a new scent. It tilts its head around as one of its pendulous emanation-receptors struggles to raise itself. Its pupils dilate and contract in erratic, fluid motions. It sniffs more.

I sit here, awkwardly waiting for the thing to break out of its trance.

It gets to its feet and looks around with narrowed eyes.

"_Psst_. You alright—ah!" I jolt my hand, which I had just momentarily put weight on, up to my face and scrutinize it angrily. "You buggers," I chided the dirts and weeds as I scraped them from the betweens of my fingers. I then take a closer look at my thumb, the one Riolu had bitten yesterday. Brown granules of dirt are visible through my semitransparent skin, filling up the cavities that were created by the fangs. There are hints of green here and there, and I'm not entirely sure whether the green is from plants or gangrene. I stare at my thumb for a minute before Riolu interrupts.

"Uh..." it finally rejoins, then takes off soon after.

I leap to my feet and call out after it, "Where are you going?"

The pokémon, suddenly savage and untamed, scampers away until I can't see it any longer. I curse under my breath and begin to run after it.

After chasing the blue dot for several minutes, it comes to a halt, to my relief. I approach the thing and wrap my hands around its body. As I pull it to my chest, my eyes rise and settle upon a small group of men, standing about five meters away. The man in front of the group, wearing light brown garments of forest-fit lasting, holds in a cupped hand a multicolored assortment of lustrous, cubical candies. His eyes are wide like they had just experienced God's wrath, and his outstretched arm trembles slightly. He shoves the candies in his pocket and, with his spare hand, points at Riolu. "I don't suppose that's it, is it?"

One of the men behind him, the one whose casual shirt-and-dungaree attire makes him stick out amongst the rest of the group, has an expression showing just as much nervousness as the leader. He gulps and answers, "Th-that's my riolu...!"

The leader glares at me from the riolu and says, "You, boy. Were you planning on returning that riolu?" He advances on me slowly, followed by his group, all of which are taking cautious baby-steps after their leader.

I can feel Riolu quiver in my grasp as it stares down the man in casual attire. I try to back up, but I'm too tense. This is the first time I've seen human life in two days, and normally this wouldn't be so unusual, considering how reclusive I am, but that's not the case now.

"I'm guessing this is the runaway kid," the leader says, more to himself than to me. "Come with us, right now," he orders calmly.

So… Remember when I told you how "I practically live in the most permissive chain of isles in the world"?

* * *

**A/N: Character development! So, what do you think of Riolu? More importantly, what do you think will happen? And what's going on with Damian's thumb!?**


	4. Talks About Evolving

People often tell their lethargic peers to take initiative and make something of themselves, to reach for every opportunity one has and seize it with force, to make the most of the golden concept that is life, to act independently, yet responsibly, in order to fulfill one's desires and become someone. Someone. That word, used in this context as 'a person of importance', sounds foreign as it rolls off the tongue, yet I keep striving to reach that title, and in doing so, I have been making life harder and harder to live. I have been living finicky and independent, when I could just be living in accord with the people around me and their lifestyles, camouflaging myself amongst everyone else and blending in. But that wouldn't be fun, would it?

So, sometimes all it takes for lazy people to take initiative is simply getting off their asses. Simple as that. But my take on taking initiative is hectically more intense.

Starting a world-wide revolution is going to be a lot harder than that.

Both halves of my brain are in a constant battle with each other. One half says, "You're only young, and you can't take on an entire world by yourself. Let the present-day counterparts of Nat Turner, John Brown, HBS, et cetera, deal with this." The other half, fortunately the weaker and less persistent of the two, says, "Don't you know there's no such existing equivalents, and that you're the only one here who believes in stopping this madness?"

All the opposing armies in my head make me ache. I should be too young to be going through such frustrating inner-conflicts! I should have stuck with my reading, my sleeping, my video games, my average teenager doings, but instead my weaker half got the better of me and now I'm knee-deep in, well, tall rainforest grasses...

«Talks About Evolving»

When I first met neonate Eevee, she was quite similar to Riolu in that she always seemed to be in her own little world, oblivious yet curious. Emotionless. She remained that way throughout her labor days, until I started giving her attention.

As she grew fonder of me, I noticed her overall attitude change. What once was a stare devoid of expression turned into an inalienable grin of miniscule fangs. The only times I saw her she was usually grinning - probably because those were the only times she saw me. As she grew more comfortable, she also adapted a mischievous alter-ego. Yes, she was a sly little trickster, but she meant no real harm.

Eevee have a little too much forehead, if you ask me. So I gave Eevee a hat, to conceal that vast mass as well as help her bear the snows, but she ate its cotton insides, promptly after going to town with it and gnawing apart its seams. I've never seen a pokémon as playful as that.

The only thing I can vividly remember of Eevee, other than her forehead and saucerless eyes, was a peculiar marking on her tail. There was an abnormal patch of brighter fur that looped entirely around the circumference of the tail nearest the base. She was proud of it, I could tell. At times, she was even overtly boastful, and would pompously parade around me with her tail waving like a discolored flag in the air.

Like I said, Eevee was a jokester, and I was utterly astonished to find that out. I feel like any pokémon who is shown that much affection will turn out to have much more of a personality than one would original percieve from its depressed, laboring state. If Riolu and I survive any longer, maybe it could end up showing more than just a blank stare...

Suddenly, I get to thinking about my flat bed and refrigerator again. I can go back... I think I can go back! I can make things how they were. I can be normal, and keep my lonely mansion, and save myself from prison. Yeah, I could go home and raid the refrigerator and empty it of its liquid contents. I could take a cool shower, and fall on my bed, free of spine-warping kinks and tree roots. The thought of a flat bed is almost too blissful!

In my dehydrated state of mind, I completely and intentionally vanquish all desires to find out whether Riolu can truly become more friendly.

I raise my arms with Riolu in their grasp, removing Riolu from the safety of my chest. Riolu looks around, slightly confused at first, but as I slowly and mindlessly pace towards the men, Riolu grows more concerned and panicky.

I took after this riolu here when I found it on the road, I'll say to the men. Took me a while, but I finally caught it, the slippery bugger. No need to thank me. It'd be awful to have a useful slave such as this escape.

It swivels around between my hands and looks me dead in the eye. Its eye twitches a little as it holds its stern look. As it makes to snap at the webbing between my thumb and forefinger, I sober up and recoil both hands, dropping it onto the ground before it can fully sink its teeth in. The men stare at me.

"Don't let it get away!" shouts the main man as he draws a pistol from a holster on his belt, which I had failed to acknowledge until now.

"Hey, hey!" Casual Attire waves his hand frantically at the main man. "You can't shoot my riolu!"

The main man rests his gun-wielding hand on his hip and looks at his teammates. "Well," he stammers, "I don't know how we're supposed to get it back! Nothing like this has ever happened. If we had some tranquilizer-dart-thingies, it'd be more useful, okay? But we don't got none of them, so I gotta shoot it or something."

"Shooting my slave – sir, I need it intact, else't'd be useless."

I can tell they're just as flustered about this situation as I am. Riolu sneaks backwards behind my leg, glowering up at who I'm guessing is its owner. As the men continue to argue, Riolu creeps off into the shrubbery.

Oh shoot, oh shoot, oh shoot. What do I do?

I slowly follow the riolu through the bushes, keeping a wary eye on the group of men. I'm much bigger than the riolu, and therefore less shrubbery-dynamic. The bushes rustle and garner the attention of the group. They stare at me as I stare back awkwardly.

"Don't-don't do anything, I'm doing nothing wrong," I say as I keep treading through the shrubs until I slowly disappear. As soon as I'm out of eye-shot, I look around until I spot Riolu, who has darted off without me. I take off in a sprint as well. Behind me, I can hear the men bursting through the thick wall of greenery that had separated us before. They yell out after me.

"Hey, why are you running?" they cry. "We need to talk to you!"

I turn my head around as I run, glancing questioningly at the men.

One of them notices and calls out, "Can you help us catch that slave?"

...I still have a chance at escaping from this, and, perhaps, if I'm lucky, I can escape without having to turn Riolu in to them. I inwardly thank them for their ignorance, and begin conjuring a plan (which is remarkably hard to do while running - for me at least). I slow down and rest against a tree, panting. Water would be nice right now. I turn to the men and flinch as they approach within seconds of me turning my head. Now's the time to see what their true intentions are.

"What are you doing?" the main man asks harshly. "You let it get away!"

At the moment, it's still hard to decide whether or not they want to jail me. One question has remained unasked by them: why did you run off to the mountain? Them asking that question could immediately decide my fate, and it's certain that the main man knows that I'm the "runaway kid". If I can get out of their sight, I'm home free.

"Sorry, I'm out of breath, sir. I'll catch that slave for you, though! Don't you worry, just give me a moment."

"Good, son. A young lad like you should be faster than us, I hope. But the longer we talk, the farther that slave is gettin' away." The man turns to his group with doubtful eyes. "Let's split up and meet at the peak if we find the riolu. Mr. Waters, you come with me." He turns back to me. "If you get a hold of that riolu, return to the peak. Good luck."

The group disperses and travels down the hill. I look around, dazed.

My plan is working...I think. All I need to do is find Riolu, so we can get as far away from here as possible. I wipe my forehead. I'm drenched with sweat. It's soothing, but I'm not producing as much as I usually do when I exert myself. I recall certain people in that group having water bottles attached to their belts...

As the day proceeds, I grow more and more disconcerted towards Riolu's safety with the passing of each fruitless hour. The sun is nearing the horizon, coloring the sky and its clouds in the usual, stunningly beautiful way. I'm about to give up and begin my journey home, to my flat bed and refridgerator, when something bounds from a nearby bush and practically splits its skull in two on my shin.

"Jeez!"

"K'argh!" Riolu lays on the ground, hiding its face behind its caressing paws.

Relief had come in the form of a shin-splintering thud, and I'm thankful for it. I lean down and rebuke the riolu for being so oblivious. What were the chances of it running into me, and not all the other men? Perhaps, all the other men were holding onto their cubical candies—pokéblocks, I think they're called—and Riolu had associated all distant traces of the blocks' scents with the slave hunters.

I go to grab a hold of Riolu, but it tenses and hisses and claws at me. "What's the matter? I'm not going to hurt you; it's me."

Riolu gets to its feet, still rubbing its head, and stumbles away. It turns around and gives me a glare that's surprisingly menacing for its size.

Finally, it clicks. I had nearly handed Riolu over to the men. After two days of "nurturing" the poor pokémon, I had nearly handed it right back to its owner.

I'm sorry, Riolu, I was just thinking about my house and-and I got a little confused! I sigh and try to reason with it. "I would never return you, don't you know that? If I wanted to return you, I would have done it already, wouldn't I have?"

Suddenly, Riolu's eyes, as well as its nostrils, widen. Oh no.

The all too familiar main man appears from behind a tree with his weapon aimed at Riolu. The sight of the glistening metal in his hand is enough to paralize the tiny being. "Now, don't you move a muscle, little one." The guy waves his gun towards "Mr. Waters", the slave owner. "Come back to your master. He misses you. Don't you miss him?"

Mr. Waters shyly says, "I don't think it does miss me." What a shocking anomaly! This slave, just recently caught, disobeyed their master! Unbelievable! Just the word "disobey" is utterly inconceivable.

"Return to your owner at once, or else I'll shoot." The main man's hand struggles to keep the gun from slipping from his grasp. He wouldn't dare shoot such a valuable bipedle.

Slaves have different ranges of prices, depending primarily on their size and anatomy, and secondarily on their skills. A four-legged houndour, if it were to ever be used as a slave, would be less expensive than a four-legged, colossal arcanine. A four-legged arcanine would be less expensive than a bipedal psyduck. A bipedal psyduck would be less expensive than a bipedal, towering scizor. The only exception where this rule does not apply is when there's telepathy involved. Lord Lucifer, I cannot tell you how much slavers go crazy over pokémon with telepathy.

But, to me, the whole size/shape-over-skills seems like it would be a fairly ineffective way to categorize pokémon. Because, say there was a small four-legger with the psychic power to lift tons and tons of something with its mind, and compare that to a two-legger with barely enough strength to push a rock. Why would such a weakling be purchased for more money than a quadruped with such biblical strength? Stature counts. I've been trying to figure out the ways of this society. So far, no luck.

Riolu takes a final glance at me before sighing and slumping towards its owner. I blink.

I open my mouth to say something, but I decide against it. I could be put in prison if they find out I'm on the same side as their slave.

Mr. Waters raises a brow. The main slave hunter lowers his gun and breathes out, relieved that this whole hunt is finally over.

Riolu... What's gotten into you? Don't just give up...

We can still do this!

As Riolu is barely just out of reach of its master's awaiting arms, it raises its head and huffs out in a fit. It suddenly draws back its fist and releases it full force, like the spring launcher of a pinball machine. Its fist meets the kneecap of its owner. All the leeway on either side of the man's leg could not prevent the following from happening.

The hit lands at such a degree that the mans knee bends inwards with a sickening _crek_. Had the man not been standing perfectly straight, his leg wouldn't look like it's bent in the opposite direction as the front of the body.

Mr. Waters shrieks and crumples to the ground as Riolu continues mercilessly unleashing its Close Combat.

The main man looks on in silence as if he's about to condone the whole act and simply walk away, not wanting to risk his legs. Instead, with a shaking hand, he brings the pistol back up. Riolu notices quickly though, and snarls as it darts towards the main man in zigzagging patterns, leaving poor Mr. Waters alone on the ground.

Before a single shot is fired, Riolu leaps into the air, extends its Shadow Claw, and tears through the man's face, leaving three clean cuts to fester, one of which, the most critical one, starts at his left temple, trails through his eyes and the top of his nose, and ends at his right cheekbone. Riolu ricochets off his chest and lands on the ground. One of the man's eyes slides ever so slightly out of its socket and oscillates for a moment below like a pendulum, before gravity pulls the eye's innards downward, puss and all, out of the slit on the iris and pupil. The yellow, watery custard spills on his chin and drips from there onto the forest floor. In disbelief, he slowly brings a wavering hand to touch his face, before letting out a gasp and fainting. His entire body collapses soundlessly, without a single grunt or shuffle.

Riolu, with its fists balled, stands still, breathing in and out heavily. I'm overcome with dizziness. I slink to the main man and kneel down. He gurgles and whines quietly. I try my best to refrain from looking at his face, and instead search around his belt. I pull the water bottle from its pouch. I hesitate, wondering whether I should take the pistol. Riolu just shamelessly tore an island "policer" apart, so I suppose tearing more people apart, should we ever have to, wouldn't effect our reputation any more than this initial tearing. I remove the man's belt and wrap it around my waist before sliding the gun into its holster.

I move to the next victim. I take Mr. Water's water bottle and look over his buckled legs, most likely swollen and purple underneath his dungarees. I shudder at the thought. He lets out a loud and sudden groan.

"Help... Somebody help!" He tosses and turns on the ground, cringing every time his legs rub against each other.

Enough wasting time! I uncap the water bottle and allow the nectar down my desert of a throat. I finish the bottle within moments. I let out a satisfied sigh. I grab the other bottle. I should give this one to Riolu, to atone for almost turning it in. As I turn to Riolu, my eyes are met with a bright luminescence, dancing all along Riolu's deforming body. I stare on in both horror and awe. Something I cannot explain is going down.

Something screams in my head. I jump back with a start. I look around nervously for the sound, but the bright light and I are the only existences in the proximity, unless one of the slave hunters is lurking amidst the darkness.

I turn back to the light to notice that it has doubled in size. I swallow and speak out with a small, stuttering voice. "R-Riolu...?"

"Damian..." wheezes a soft, strangulated voice.

My eyes have adjusted to the light. It's now easier to distinguish Riolu's outline from the forest background. But the outline doesn't look like Riolu... The coruscating entity has what I'm guessing are its paws wrapped around its neck. It moves on its knees towards me, reaching out with one paw while the other still clutches its neck.

"Dam-i-an," it cries out in erratic gasps. "Listen... I-I can't evolve unless-ack-unless this collar is off..." The light falls to the ground and pulls its knees to its chest. It lies there, coughing violently, until the light fades and its elongated arms and legs retreat back into its body.

The blue and black colors, as well as the small body shape, have returned. All is quiet. I sit in the darkness for a few minutes, letting the stifled pokémon recollect itself. Finally, it shakily gets to its feet and looks at me through disappointed, scarlet eyes. It shakes its head and starts to walk off. It is bound to its rioluhood by its shackle and collar.

"...Hey, where are you going?"

"Kah!" Riolu exclaims in frustration.

An idea comes to me. "Hold on!" I fumble through Mr. Water's clothes until I pull out his wallet. Riolu has stopped storming off and is curiously peering around its shoulder at me. "A-ha!" His driver's license displays, in bold letters amongst various other information, his address. "Riolu, I have his address. If we go there, we might have a chance at getting your collar key." I know there's a minute chance of actually finding the keys within what could be an enormous slave complex, but in such a dire situation, I'm up for anything.

Riolu approaches skeptically with folded arms.

"Listen, I would never return you to your owner, and that's that." A rush of guilt comes over me. "Now, if we raid this place soon, we might have a chance at finding the keys without getting caught."

The riolu gives a sigh and accepts. I hand it the last water bottle, which it takes in its paws gratefully. . .

. . .Sure enough, Mr. Water's address is the address of a massive slave complex. A lot of the time, people who deal in slaves need large storage spaces to organize what is to be sold.

Riolu and I scan the complex from our hiding place amid some dirt mounds not too far away. I don't know what we're going to find in there, but chances are, there are going to be a whole lot of pokémon. I turn to Riolu and ask if it's ready. Riolu anxiously nods.

If we're lucky, Mr. Waters would be the only person to tend to his slaves, but in some cases slaves need to be tended to by an entire team of slavers. Should we be so unlucky, there will be guards patrolling around the cages within the complex. These people are really serious about money. Pray to God that's not our circumstance.

In between us and the complex, there lies what could be Mr. Waters' house, which is the address that we searched for. It's a small shack, less menacing than the monolithic warehouse next door. This house has less of a chance to hold other people than the complex, unless Mr. Waters has a wife and kids. A little peeping wouldn't hurt.

There are no lights on in either building, but the islanders on this island usually go to bed before midnight.

Finally, after a few deep breaths, Riolu and I move out. We run towards the shack, avoiding the floodlights that spot the area. When we reach the house, we peer through each window and, to the best of our eyes' ability, try to determine whether any figures lurk inside. Riolu looks at me and shakes its head.

"What?" I whisper.

The pendulous aura-receptors on each side of its head are slightly hovering in the air. They slowly drop back to their normal position. Riolu starts circling the perimeter, me following, until it reaches the door. It looks up at me, waiting. I check the doorknob. It's locked. I remove Mr. Waters' keys from my pocket and try each key in the door until one of them fits. I slowly push open the door and sneak in with Riolu following behind.

Inside the shack it is quite messy and unkept. The first room, with the front door, is the kitchen. We quickly gather all the water bottles we can hold, and scavenge some of the food from the small fridge.

The next room is Mr. Waters' bedroom. We search it in case Riolu's keys are somewhere within. No such luck. I predict that, somewhere inside the complex, there is a master key for all the slaves' collars and wrist-shackles.

The next and last room is a full-bath. Nothing to see here. We exit the building, making sure to close and lock the door behind us, and hide our collection of bottles in the grass nearby.

We take another minute to rest and survey from afar the complex's property for any potential dangers. I look at Riolu as it inspects the grounds with its aura-receptors. When it was evolving, I felt a tremendous fear inside me. I have never experienced something like that before. Frankly, I thought evolution generally takes years and years to successfully undergo, and that Riolu's evolution would be an arduous step by step deformation process, such like ours. However, if that were the case, I doubt we'd have enough time to wait out in the jungle for Riolu to transform, so _this_ system of pokémon evolution is much more ideal.

And that voice... To add to my fear, there were reverberating cries for help inside my brain, making it painfully hard to hear my _own_ thoughts, that sounded much like an average human in distress. The telepathy frightened me to no extent, yes, but Riolu - _Lucario_, rather - had a voice that was not animalistic nor alien, to my surprise, but rather genuine, like an average human's! Though my mind was in a daze and my body shaking in fear, my interest in Lucario's instinctual idiosyncrasies had been sparked.

What really piqued me, and at the same time unnerved me, was the softness of Lucario's voice. It was gentle and soothing—despite the interfering gags and wheezes. Its voice...was feminine. All this time, I have never considered Riolu to be a female, simply because I will tend to subconsciously categorize normal-looking pokémon as males and extremely feminine-looking pokémon, such as frillish and petilil, as females. It's a bad habit, I know, but hey, I've been referring to Riolu as an "it" in case such a discovery were to come about. Otherwise, I would have been calling Riolu a "he", had I no qualms about accidentally insulting it.

If Riolu was a girl, which has yet to be fully determined, that would change my entire look on it. I had caught it once peeking at me (not peeking, more like conspicuously gawking) when I was taking a leak in the forest. I stared at it questioningly until it backed off and disappeared. I didn't take much note of it, but that's because I figured that Riolu was just casually strolling around, you know, doing things a typical, curious pokémon would do, having a look at the scenery, being a _male_... If Riolu was a girl...that'd change my entire outlook on that once-unexceptional situation.

I blush in embarrassment. I become serious and clear my throat. "It's time," I notify my partner in crime. We advance.

* * *

**A note from the authors: **

Hello dearest readers! We've recently come to realize that this story is lacking in reviews :c Please review! It really boosts our confidence, as well as fuels us to write more _Turnaround_! It would bring tears of joy to our eyes to know you appreciate this story as much as we appreciate you continuously following along. Thank you.

And sorry for the semi-short chapter. Spare me :l


	5. Revolt, Take 1: Long Bay Complex

The complex consists of about four different warehouses. The largest, main warehouse has the most potential to house our keys. Presumably, it will also contain the most slaves. It looms over us as we approach. My nerves are acting up, so I try not to dwell too much upon the recent events that have occurred, and instead softly hum to myself. Riolu prompts me to quiet with a forceful nudge. I roll my eyes and begin to fiddle with the keys for the door.

The inside of the building is unexpectedly less frightening than the exterior. The inner walls, unexposed to natural elements, have a lot less rust on them. I look around complacently. The main warehouse isn't a gigantic, metal box with air inside, but rather it is composed of several different rooms and hallways, each with doors and the same, metal walling. The first room we have entered has a vast, forlorn feel to it, as it has no furniture or anything else of that sort.

We proceed to the next door. Thankfully, the inner doors do not require keys. We creep into the unexplored room. It's nearly pitch black inside. Above, I can make out the faint outlines of shutters. I climb towards them and attempt to pry them open with my hand. I groan and recoil.

"Dammit, Riolu," I mutter, pointlessly looking over my hand—in the dark. "Why'd you have to bite me? Something's seriously wrong with my thumb now."

Behind me comes a quiet whimper.

I switch to my uninjured hand and attempt once more to pry the shutters open. I'm almost immediately greeted by a satisfying, metallic sliding noise, followed by the entry of the moon's unusually bright luminescence. Rows of narrow, rectangular lights now lie on the floor and bounce off just enough for me to make out the furnishings of the room. It's an office. The "central processing" of the complex. On the wall is a cork board with neat columns of hooks, all accompanied by white labels alphabetizing the hooks in order. Hanging from each hook is a key ring, and hanging from each key ring is a copper plethora of keys, beautifully glistening in the moonlight as symbols of freedom. Taped onto each key is another white label. Some labels have been left blank. I assume they're the counterparts of currently unused collars and shackles. The labels that are marked, however, have more specific writings on them: the names of species.  
I gasp in joy. Riolu isn't aware of my discovery; in a trance, it stands on a desk, peering out a window overlooking another, larger room of the warehouse. I return to my search.

A, B, C...

Riolu tenses and, with its receptors up and operational, assumes an alert stance at its perch.

H, I, J...

With narrowed eyes, the Emanator glances at me and then back out the window.

O...!

P...!

Q...!

Riolu suddenly bursts forth towards me and seizes my pant leg. It tugs at it vigorously. I tell it to wait as I cycle through the keys on the "R" hook.

Raichu...

Ralts...

Reuniclus...!

A light. It burns my peripheral as it flickers on in the next room and shines through the window like a sun. Footsteps on concrete sound faintly, but a slight crescendo is noticeable. We are not alone.

«Revolt, Take 1: Long Bay Complex»

It is now that I become fully aware of the reason for Riolu's sudden trepidation. I stare at it with fearful eyes, as if to ask, what should I do? An answer quite obviously doesn't come. Instead, Riolu scans the now-faintly-lit office until its eyes lay upon a niche beneath the assortment of desks, lined against the far wall. Good thinking. Riolu makes its way to the desk.

I crawl to Riolu and curl up next to it in the nook. The surface above extends from the wall enough to provide us some concealment. However, if someone were to simply bend down... I don't want to think about it. We're trespassing on what might as well be government property. If we're caught, consequences will be harshened ten times what they would have been for us after assaulting those men, then as it was.

The door opens. My heart sinks. Riolu's paw reaches out and slips itself around my arm. Whether the action was spastically involuntary or not, I don't know.

The office light switches on. I watch as two pairs of feet sluggishly enter the room. Behind the feet and outside the doorway, I swear I can hear faint groans emitting from something unknown. Machinery? The wind? Or pokémon...? The door closes, and all I can hear is the breathing of our guests.

Two men. They begin talking in awfully raspy and exhausted voices.

Gruff voice: "Well I guess he's not here."

Thickly accented voice: "Yeah, well I guess so!"

"So if he hasn't returned...what does that mean?"

"Do not ask me. He is crazy crazy crazy about tat Riolu. Says it can sell for—"

"As much as the ralts and the alakazam."

"Ja! Ja! That's what 'e said."

"And why the hell are _they_ so expensive? Are psychics just generally expensive or something?"

A long pause.

One of the pairs of feet moves towards us. Riolu tightens its grasp. I can feel it shivering besides me, and the light vibrations of its fur against the bare skin of my arm are beginning to tickle. Slowly, with my free hand, I wedge its paw off my other arm, which I then wrap around Riolu's body. It seems to ease up slightly.

The feet approach quickly and stop short once they reach the desk.

A shuffling of papers from above.

This person reaches for a nearby swivel chair. the person rolls it noisily towards himself, then the person sits in the chair and continues sorting through the papers with his knees merely two feet away from my face.

Thickly accented voice: "Nah, Riolu, they're not psychics. They're ta fighting-types."

Gruff voice: "Oh, got it... So, what do you reckon? You know, about Gale?"

"Well, I heard him say somethin' 'bout finding some officers to escort him."

"Does he even have any idea where the riolu could be?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact. I dropped him off at the station, an' I followed him in. Police reported a young girl comin' in and talking about a white boy running off after the riolu up Yuet Sage."

"Ah, so he does know where it is, the general location at least. And what about that boy? Was he trying to catch it?"

"Of course he was trying to catch it. Unless he was, maybe, trying ta spook it."

"You can't predict kids these days."

"Amen."

The gruff man continues sorting through the papers above. The other man still remains by the door, standing. He removes his hat and drops it on top of a cabinet next to him. Riolu buries its face into my side. I try to the best of my ability to shorten my breathing.

I guess if worst comes to worst (they find us), we'll just have to take physical measures by unleashing our (Riolu's) flurries of Close Combats. Riolu, with its paws balled into fists, is bracing itself already.

Gruff Voice: "A-ha. Found it. Okay, let's see. This riolu was first marketed in the New England portion of the United States. It doesn't specify which state exactly...but no matter. She was hatched by a breeder on...yadda yadda yadda...1988. There have been reports of her disobeying several different owners. Wow, she certainly seems like a frisky one, eh? Those ought to be put down.

"...And, finally, here's the useful information. She's a fighting-type, and her final evolution is a fighting-steel-type. Her evolution is capable of...yadda yadda... Telepathy? Telepathy! That's it. That's why they're so expensive."

Thickly accented voice: "There you go."

"I feel satisfied, now that I have closure. Ha! Ha!"

"Good man. Gale is not here. Let's leave."

"Yeah, I'd like to go to sleep. Gale will probably be back by the morning with that riolu."

Papers are rustled loudly once more. Eventually, the gruff man stands, pushes the chair aside, and follows his coworker out the door. The door slams shut. Immediately, Riolu and I both release our kept breaths. Riolu looks up at me for a moment. There is still a tinge of fear in its eyes. It then backs away, no longer in contact with me. I look it over, though it is dark.

I guess I should stop calling it an "it" now...

Not only did I discover, or rather conclude, that Riolu is a female, but that Riolu is also far older than me...which is not at all what I had expected. Due to its size, the fact that it hasn't yet evolved, and the reaction system of an infant it appears to possess, I had figured it was fairly young. 1988! All this new information is too much to handle.

Riolu and I stare awkwardly at each other for another moment, until I slide my way out of the nook. I need to find that key fast, before the lights outside shut off.

Raichu...

Ralts...

Reuniclus...

Riolu.

I separate the key from the rest on the ring, and kneel down in front of Riolu. I start with the shackle on its arm. The key works perfectly, to our relief. She revels in the feeling of air reaching her wrist for the first time in days. The fur that the shackle once hid is damp with sweat. I try to calm her so I can unlock the collar. She gets just as much joy from having her neck free and unstrangled. She paws her neck like she has a newfound feel for her body.

Because Riolu is unbound by her metals, she should be able to evolve, without having to worry about discomforting obstacles. However, the prospect of evolution is still up in the air. I recall Riolu explaining, with the use of charades, how pokémon fight each other in order to evolve. At the time, I thought that the concept was implausible (remember the charmeleon I told you about? I was told it had evolved by simply just lifting and transporting crates, not by fighting), though the concept would explain why Riolu had evolved after thrashing at those two men. Could it be that the buildup to evolution via fighting is more for the most placid of pokémon, whereas more boisterous pokémon can easily react to the merest of stimuli? In which case, Riolu wasn't entirely right, but wasn't entirely wrong either. I shouldn't have doubted her. After all, don't I believe in pokémon being ten times smarter than humans?

At such times of disorder, I can be an extremely ambivalent person.

Once the lights in the bigger room shut off, we both proceed out the door cautiously. An alerted bark in the darkness notifies its invisible peers that there is a presence among them. The bark is then followed by howls, yaps, whimpers, and whines from said invisible peers.

I turn to Riolu, whose outline is barely visible. By now, I'm almost certain that these animalistic cries are not being produced by machinery, but obviously by slaves.

"Ready to act, Riolu? Shall this be the first lot of slaves for us to test if we can really start an uprising?"

"Mm," she affirms.

"Okay, but firstly, can you try to find a slave who knows how to light up a room? Someone who knows Flash."

Riolu reluctantly complies and slinks off into the vast darkness. I can imagine it's hard for her to communicate with other beings in the dark when she can't yet telepathize. She spends a number of minutes walking around and asking each pokémon individually if they know Flash. They exchange various noises before Riolu, not having achieved helpful results, navigates to the next pokémon for interrogation.

After a while, the sounds of conversation die away. Then, something begins to glow ominously in the distance. The light grows larger, until it fills half the room. I run towards it, and in the process I accidentally slam into a cage, disturbing the slaves inside.

"Croa!"

"Ouch, sorry!" I continue on until I'm amidst the light. At the center lies a cage with the satisfied Emanator standing beside it, and within the cage lays the mangled body of a badly abused umbreon, as well as the company of a few others, all of which are bipeds and are therefore in better condition.

The poor thing struggles to give off light from its golden rings, and fidgets about where it lays. I can't help but pity the thing. One of its hind legs is severely damaged, probably from someone kicking it. I'm guessing this slave, since it knows Flash, would be used in the exploration of caves and such. Unfortunately for it, there isn't a high demand for assistance of that sort, due to the fact that all caves on the island had been pretty much fully explored in the early 1900's. If that's what the quadruped is intended to be used for, then that leaves it as a waste of space for the owners of the complex, who probably gave up trying to sell it a while ago. They'll most likely kill it soon.

Unless, of course, we successfully start this revolt.

"Thank you, little umbreon. This ought to help us a bit." I look around. The cages are all aligned neatly and are adjacent to each other, creating individual 1 by, say, 30 rows. The warehouse fits 6 rows, so that's approximately 180 cages, each containing at least one slave, and at most three. That's a lot of pokémon. I can't imagine the other buildings in the complex are housing any more. How can people even find that many pokémon in the wild anymore? The answer is simple. As stated in the log for Riolu that the gruff man was reading, Riolu was hatched by man, meaning her parents were forced to breed. There are rarely any instances where pokémon are found in the wild, however people still strive to find them, just in case there are some lingering about.

I look to the riolu. "Okay, how are we gonna do this?"

She shrugs, clueless.

"I guess we can start with this umbreon, seeing as it's in pain and probably more inclined to, you know...get the hell out of here." I sit on the floor and reach my hand through the bars of the cage. I gently pet the umbreon on the head. It shudders. "It's okay, it's okay. Looks like you're not doing too well. Would you be happy if you were in the wild? Here's a question, and answer us honestly. Do you like being under the control of humans?"

The umbreon is silent, then it whines.

I turn to Riolu and inquire, "What did it say?"

Riolu squints at me and scoffs.

"Oh, right. Dammit, we can't do this unless you can talk to me. But wait, it was a yes or no question. You can answer _that_," I scoff back.

Riolu rolls her eyes and wavers her paw, conveying an "eh, comme ci comme ça" kind of answer.

"Umbreon, you need to be specific here. I won't take maybe for an answer. Do you like being under the control of humans?"

The backdoor, leading from the outside into the slave chamber of the warehouse, opens. I can hear someone say, "Just wait in the car! I forgot my hat... What the...? Ay, what's tis light?"

Riolu and I glance at each other before struggling to our feet frantically, dashing down the aisle, and finally diving behind the last cage of the row. We look behind us and watch as the thickly accented man appears beside the umbreon's cage with his hands on his hips.

"And what do you think _you're_ doing?" he asks sullenly. "No powers are allowed while you're in tis building. If it's dark, you stay in the dark!"

The umbreon whimpers timorously. It's fear seems to draw happiness from the man.

"Heh. Now cut it!"

The umbreon, for some reason, is unable to stop producing light. It pants heavily as the glow from its golden rings begins to pulse, dying to a faint glow, then brightening to a blinding flash, and going along with this pattern.

"What's wrong with you?" the man cries, now both concerned and angry. "Stop! No!" When the umbreon continues to strobe, the man shoves his hand into his pocket and pulls out a set of keys. He angrily jams one of the keys into the cage's lock, and opens the barred door. He yanks the umbreon out of the cage by its scruff and violently shakes it in the air, screaming, "Stop doing tat, you pointless slave!"

I avert my eyes from the traumatic scene to Riolu. Her paws are balled up into fists. Her teeth are grinding. She slowly paces from our hiding place and into the center of the aisle. Sometime during the man's vigorous rebuking, his eyes fall on the riolu, who now stands only about twenty meters away from him. He stops shaking the umbreon, who now hangs limply in the air, and stares wide-eyed at her.

They continue to look at each other until the light from the umbreon gradually fades away. All is black. After a few seconds, I hear, far away, what sounds like jeans being torn, followed by the scream of a man. Then something rams into a cage, creating a body-on-iron-on-iron clanging sound. More screams. More slashing noises. Some of the pokémon in the room begin to moan in distress, elicited by the bedlam between riolu and man of which they can sense.

Eventually, it grows quiet once again. I tremble where I sit. That riolu is savage, I swear. I'm becoming concerned for my _own_ safety... A minute passes. I expect her to return to me, but she doesn't. Instead, a white, familiar light appears, but it's not the umbreon's. I doubt the umbreon could use Flash any more, not after the light show it exerted just now.

This light is produced by Riolu. It's happening again. But I was prepared for this moment, and I somewhat know what to expect. I'm both excited to see what a lucario looks like, but at the same time I'm nervous about what she'll say to me, and how she'll...judge me...

In the distance, I watch as the entity of light's arms and legs extend to greater lengths, aura-receptors retreat into the head and are replaced with four of the same kind from the back, and ears grow in length and pointiness. The light finally dies down. I get to my feet and anxiously begin to creep down the aisle. All around me it is dark and quiet. I can't tell for sure when I'll reach her, but at this rate it'll take a long time. With my hands out in front of me, I slink onward.

"Riolu? L-Lucario?"

What if lucario are scary-looking? What if pokémon change their entire attitudes as well as characteristics? What if evolution could potentially replace their passivity with hostility? Could Lucario burst towards me and tear my face off? Has she adapted the will to do that?

"Damian," comes a soft voice in my head.

"Lucario? W-where are you?"

My hands are met with two paws. I don't know why, but I steadily pull her into an easing embrace, whether or not she's become a monster. She doesn't seem to mind, nor does she bite through my neck, so those are good signs. I quake in her arms.

"What... What d-do you see?" I stutter.

She breathes out. "I see you. I see another man, and I see an umbreon."

Her fur is warm. Something prods my lower chest. The disconcertion caused by this unidentifiable object digging into me does not help with the state I'm in. I back off, still shivering.

"Do you s-see a light switch?"

"...Yes. I'll be right back."

I listen to her as she walks off towards the backdoor. The room is then flooded in fluorescence. What I see now will most likely be the most horrific thing my eyes will ever witness. The thickly accented man lays against the umbreon's cage with a gaping hole in his lower stomach, stretching down to his penis-less groin. His jeans, which were all I could see of him before, when I was under the desk, are shredded around the waist and don't help to cover that area of skin anymore. The spray of blood on the iron bars behind him, and the blood cascading down his dreadlocks, lead me to believe Riolu threw him into the cage. What strength.

Next to the man lies the umbeon's body. Disregarding the man, I move to the umbreon and fall to my knees. Its skin and fur have visibly contracted around its ribcage over time, nearly tight enough to shatter the bones. Its eyelid flickers. The lumps that protrude from its contracted belly pulsate lightly. After a while, its belly becomes inanimate.

It shouldn't have exerted itself like that, especially when it was running on such a low amount of food.  
I begin to sob silently. The tears that have been building up with each disaster I experience well in my eyes, but refuse to roll downward. I say, through incoherent mumbles, "Oh... Oh... Eevee, no. Eevee..."

I press my thumbs against my eyes. I have barely any faith in my plan. Albeit, my faith has increased since I first ran off with Riolu, but by such a minute level. I realize that if I don't succeed, tormenting living creatures will just continue, completely unfazed by my failed actions. When I try to communicate with these pokémon, I want, more than anything, for them to realize that what they're going through is unnatural. But, just like a human is born drowning in oxygen, a pokémon is born into slavery, and this is because we have manipulated entire species into developing certain instincts upon being hatched, and those instincts are to serve us, and for them it is natural. I rely on that miniscule strand of faith to keep me going.

"Damian?"

I forgot about Lucario! I rub my eyes and look up to her. She's a blue blur. I rest against the floor, sniffing and wiping my eyes some more. I sense Lucario sit down next to me. She places a paw on my back.

"What's the matter? Why were you saying 'Eevee'?"

I give a light smile. "No reason. It's just... That umbreon reminds me of an Eevee my slave trader parents used to own." I turn to her, and for the first time I can see her fully without any tears or lack of light obscuring my vision. I'm stunned, to say the least. She is nothing close to a monster. Her oddly curvaceous figure was not something I had expected her to adapt. I'd say that the most eye-catching trait she has are the self-defense apparatuses that grow from both her wrists and her sternum. That must have been what was prodding me before.

Lucario frowns. "That umbreon. It's dead."

"Well I... I know that."

"That's awful to have something like that remind you of—"

"Who said the umbreon reminded me of Eevee because it was dead? And how do you know Eevee's not dead, anyway?"

At this, Lucario becomes dead silent. She briefly looks at me with compassion, and then turns away. "Your eevee died?" She inquires solemnly.

"Well..." I let out an exasperated huff. "I don't know! We don't need to talk about this any more."

We sit silently.

"I mean, God, the first thing you do when you evolve is nag me about how to properly correlate things? I should have known a freethinker like you would take every opportunity to censure us humans."

She glares at me. "Aren't _you_ a freethinker? Isn't that what _you_ do? Censure your hierarchy?" She lowers her voice and relaxes confidently. "But I guess the only difference between you and me is I actually _openly_ censure my highers, and don't pent those thoughts up inside, hiding away in my mansion."

I turn and empty my stomach onto the floor. I'm left wheezing violently. Without turning my head from the spit-up, I continue talking through coughs and gags. "What do _you_ know about me?"

She doesn't respond immediately, as though she's shocked. When she finally gives me an answer, it's, "I've read your mind. I've gone through your memories like they were organized in filing cabinets. All you do is sit at your home and ruminate on how you hate the world, but you've never done anything about it, until one day, you had had just enough alcohol to be at its mercy, and it made you act out in what you considered at the time to be a heroic deed, but now that you're not under the influence of alcohol, you can't stop grieving about how you wish you left me to fend for myself and WENT ABOUT YOUR NORMAL, EVERYDAY DOINGS! But you can't turn back now, can ya?"

...Jeez... I expected her to judge me...but I didn't know she could read my mind.

She gets to her feet and crosses her arms, looking around. "You know, looking through your mind, I've come to the conclusion that you're a very...uh, what do you call it? Ambivalent. You're a very ambivalent person. Don't think I forgot about how you were suddenly come over with the urge to just throw me away, back to Gale Waters. You like to contradict yourself. I can't tell if there's something actually wrong with you, but you're very unstable." She keeps glancing at the puddle beside me distractedly, like she's unnerved by it.

I, myself, am unnerved by the fact that her mouth doesn't move when she talks.

"In some alternate universe, where slavery wouldn't exist," she goes on, "I would avoid people like you. You've proved to me that you pose a threat in your own little psychological way. I would have run away by now, but alas, If I do that, I'll be caught within seconds, just like you would be caught in seconds and accused of assault, trespassing, aiding a slave under the ownership of a stranger, and destroying government property—you know, the guard rail." She approaches me and looks down, bearing cold, cynical eyes. "So... I guess we're in this together."

I don't bother to explain myself or retaliate in any way, so I just nod and stand up shakily.

"But after all, you did save me from a...a car..." she shudders as she says the word. "So I thank you. Though I should really be thanking your drunken self."

Come on, I wasn't drunk! I wasn't even tipsy! Maybe I'm just naturally stupid. "W-what about the shackles?"

"Oh, yeah," she sighs, looking down. "Thanks."

A long moment of silence comes between us. Slaves bark and moan here and there, wanting our attention. I can tell they sense the slave before them has just put the human boy in his place, and this makes them curious. They ask, Is he going to beat her for calling him out? Forget about calling him out! What's he gonna do to her for killing that man?!

"Well, shall we start?"

"I guess. What were those two saying about an alakazam and a ralts? Because if those are around, they should be able to know telepathy and can help us."

"There are no pokémon of that sort in this warehouse. We don't need anymore pokémon with telepathy. One's enough. Now...do a speech or something."

"Okay." I clear my throat and look around at the awaiting slaves. "About two centuries ago, do you know what your ancestors were doing? They were not slaves, but trainees! Yes, they were being trained by humans, not to lift crates, not to power cities, not to harvest crops, but to spar for glory with other pokémon! Sure, there'd be pain involved, but not as intense and excruciating as this! Plus, humans - and this is back when we had caring sentiments - humans had invented potions, potions that ease your pain! We were once compassionate, and you once enjoyed yourselves, fighting with other pokémon for fun. And after a long day of training, you'd be fed heartily, and then you'd go to sleep for however long you'd please.

"...That all changed with the passing of a mere bill: the Subjugation Relief Act! It's name is not even subtle, but full out heinous! Subjugation, my fellow pokémon, is not natural! What differentiates us humans from you? The fact that we're born straight from the uterus, as opposed to the egg? Why does that make us have power over you?

"The people whom you replaced were subject to slavery because they were a different color than what was perceived as 'normal'. But look at you! You're all _different_ colors! So why should you be subject to slavery? Because humans don't believe in your sentience!

"But Damian, surely humans didn't think of us as insentient beings when they were once our friends, right? That's right! That's absolutely right! So, the real question is, what the fuck happened? Why did we change our minds and begin to believe that pokémon were as dumb as rocks? Because things got out of hand after the former slaves were emancipated, and the only way to settle it was to put it in the hands of something else and have said something else worry about it instead. And everyone agreed, because white supremacy is bad! Human supremacy, now that's where it's at!

"So the bottom line is that what you're doing right now is never how it was originally meant to be. You're meant to be seen as equals among humans, not work for them. This horrid feeling you have inside you every second of every day, it's not natural. It's bad! With my help, you all can be a lot happier! With these keys, I can set you all free!" My hands shoot up for a dramatic effect as I finish my speech. I'm left panting and feeling even more woozy than before, but I stay standing.

It's extremely quiet. I expect them each to start clapping soon. They don't. The warehouse remains silent. After about a minute of me awkwardly eyeing each pokémon, searching for reactions, pokémon around the crowd begin to make themselves heard. The room is full of chatter, but it quiets quickly.

I turn to Lucario. She seems indifferent about my speech. She looks around constantly, presumably gathering as much information as she can from each pokémon. She wears a frown all the while.

After it gets just as silent as it was before, I ask her apprehensively, "What did they say...?"

She looks at me with an expression I cannot define. Disappointment, maybe? "...They don't understand," she finally says.


End file.
